


The Changeling

by telamonian



Series: Under The Thrall [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Changeling!Faraday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8467513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telamonian/pseuds/telamonian
Summary: Settle down, I'll tell you a story if you let me tell it all the way through this time. You'll like this one; it's a story about Joshua Faraday's biggest secret. He ain't really Joshua Faraday.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This a one-shot set in the same universe as my Demon!Goody fic. I have more planned to connect that plot and this one, so all this will definitely come up again, but the hope is that this is readable on its own.

Settle down, I'll tell you a story if you let me tell it all the way through this time.

You'll like this one; it's a story about Joshua Faraday's biggest secret. He ain't really Joshua Faraday.

Sure, that's the name the man you're thinking of goes by. But there was a human baby boy born – oh, about thirty four years ago now – who his mama called Joshua and it ain't the same boy who grew into the famous gambler-gunman-lover-hero. Otherwise Colleen Faraday, poor woman, would have been spared a whole mess of trouble.

It started with Colleen's family about a hundred or so years back before either of these Joshua Faradays was born. Her great-grandmother made a bargain, and by now you should know that don't end well for mortals. But she was getting too old to marry and you know how people thought back then. So she begged a faerie to make her beautiful to men's eyes so she could find herself a husband. And that faerie did very well by her in that regard. It wove gold into her auburn hair, put bright stars into her eyes, taught her how to walk pretty.

As faeries do sometimes, it asked for a first-born son by way of payment. Times being what they were, what they still are, she made the bargain anyway. Children get sick and die even so and she thinks maybe a child raised by a faerie has a better chance of escaping all that. So she traded one of her future children for the chance at having any. Still, it wasn't an easy choice, you should know.

Only thing is, Colleen's great-grandmother bore seven daughters. And her oldest, Colleen's grandmother, did the same. Colleen's mother, oldest of her sisters, only had five daughters not for lack of trying.

Most people don't know the difference between a demon's bargain and a faerie's bargain. Now you'll never catch me making a deal like that, but I've heard a fair bit about these things.

A demon's bargain ends with the sad sack that made it, but a faerie's bargain flows in your blood, passing the contract to your kin if you can't fulfill your end of the deal in life. So for a hundred years, that promise slept in those women's blood, waiting for the day an eldest daughter in their line would bear a son.

Here Colleen Faraday comes along with her flirting and her dancing with all the boys. Her mama says she'll get herself in trouble, but she doesn't listen and she doesn't particularly care. Finds herself in the family way at the age of sixteen and runs away from home, stealing herself onto a ship bound for America. And she don't know it, but she brings the faerie with her. It lies in wait, rubbing its hands, all anticipation and nerves, thinking, “I'm gonna get me a human baby, yes, sir.”

And Colleen Faraday arrives in New York with her belly all swollen and finds work where she can. Three months later, she gives birth to a handsome boy. He doesn't cry, rests easy. She calls him her little angel, gives him a handsome name and lays him to sleep one night. Faerie comes in and takes what it's due, leaves something behind. Colleen wakes in the morning to the sound of a screaming little terror.

Boy fusses and screams at all hours. It don't stop as he gets older. He won't set down at the table for supper, has night terrors that leave him kicking and screaming, won't wake up in the morning unless he's dragged out of bed. Won't do what's asked of him. Won't hold his tongue when a nasty thought enters his head. That always gets him chased by the other boys on the street, rapped on the knuckles by the schoolteacher, and cussed out by all Colleen's suitors that may come and go.

But Colleen loves the Joshua who ain't her Joshua. And Joshua loves the woman who ain't his ma.

Boy gets in all kinds of trouble. Fires start in buildings he don't like and Joshua is left without a scratch on him in the middle of a big pile of rubble. Joshua ends up in places he shouldn't be by law or logic like on top of roofs and inside of locked rooms. He spends the day lickin' his lips in front of shop windows and walks home with pockets filled with candies he don't remember taking.

Never takes long for it to come back and bite him. The name Faraday becomes a curse. Eyes following the two of them everywhere they go. Doors shut in their face. They ain't unused to getting turned away, but even the other Irish don't want a thing to do with them. So they move from borough to borough. The story goes much the same everywhere. Then they move from New York to New Jersey and so on until they've been all up and down the coast.

So Joshua and his ma head west where he has more room to stretch out. They settle down in Oklahoma. It works out just fine for a time. The boy wanders out into the wilderness when he gets restless. Always comes back and no one gets hurt. Ma doesn't ask questions.

Works out just fine until Colleen gets sick. Josh walks to the next town over to call on a doctor, only to find the man ain't sure what the problem boils down to. The boy cusses him out and sends him on his way again. (And the strangest thing is the doctor's horse spooks all of a sudden when he's on the road and throws him.)

The boy can't go out into the wild anymore, seein' as he's the only one to take care of his ma. She's sick in bed all day, so Josh goes out and he puts his curse to good use. Gets by with his old tricks just this side of the line between petty grifts and real magic. Boy plays a mean hand of poker and there's always fresh faces passing through on their way to the west. Easy pickins for smart boy with a head for trouble, and he's too slippery to get caught when he has to cheat.

Gets to the point, he don't know how to give it up when his ma passes. Goes on gambling away, living off his wits. When the well that was Oklahoma dries up, he follows the ant trail out to California in search of crumbs. Takes up drinking, and smoking, too. Makes a few acquaintances, lovers, enemies. That ain't important though.

The real fun begins when a man named Sam Chisholm comes to call with a silver bullet in a chamber for a lupine bartender by the name of Dan who ate up a farmer and his family. Now, Joshua's seen monster hunters, but Sam is something else. Folks who get in the way of his work ain't gonna stick around for long. Ain't got his head full of ideas about doing the righteous thing. Man does the thing that makes sense. In another life, Joshua thinks he oughta have been that kind of man.

Sam buys Joshua out of a spot of trouble. So it ain't a surprise it don't take much convincing for the man to take up with Sam when he extends an invitation to their date with death.

They amass an army of all manner of pariahs. A washed up demon. A would-have-been thrall. An insufferable, Mexican warlock on the run from the law. A dead man, bear of a man, stitched back together with string. An Indian who seems a hell of a monster hunter himself. Freaks of nature all, even the humans among them.

Funny thing is, Joshua Faraday don't know he's one, too.

When the battle comes, happens that he has a plan to save everyone. It's a damn good plan, for a man who's been shot already. Supposed to be a last ride, but something hears him thinking his crazy plan from another world entirely. A creature that ain't been seen on this plane since it stole a human boy away from it, oh, about thirty four years ago. And that creature got something to say about the whole situation. You can say what you want about the fair folk, but they do look out for their own.

The scene's a damn mess, but while dynamite may get the final word with humans, magic is magic. Joshua blows himself up and wakes up the next morning with a room full of freaks staring at him and wringing their hands.

Rough day all in all. Man's died and seen the face of the thing that gave him up all those years ago and come back to tell the tale, knowin' what he is now. Just another one of them magical weirdos.

What's that, _vaquero_?

No, don't reckon he minds so much being a freak, either.

Now go to sleep, sugar.

 


End file.
